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The Anarchist SavantsAu tonomy Through Knowledge & Cr ea t i v i t y

home to enjoy it all, after a hard day

of consumption, was the only thing

that mattered! The driver had heard

that the ‘Talbot Farmers Market’

was the trendy place to be, and

lets face it, the only truly beautifulthings are human made or captured.

Anyway, how was the driver, like the

thousands of others that pour through

the Dunach Forest once a month for

the market, to know that ‘Nino’ was

a ‘Barking Owl’? How was the driver

to know that ‘Ninox Connivens’ is an

endangered bird, just like the 20%*

of all birds desperately evading

extinction in their Dunach Forest

home? Nino frequently lamented thathuman terrorists (sorry tourists) were

conquering nature and that it wasn’t

hard to work out why. As an avid

reader of Eric Blairs classic Novels,

Nino knew exactly what Eric meant

when he said, “four legs good, two

legs better”

* (A rate more than twice that of the

National average)

IN THIS ISSUE

M o n t h l y

September 2007Volume 2

At approximately 8.00 pm on Sunday

he 16th of September 2007, Mr

Nino Xavier Connivens (‘Nin’ to his

mates) passed away following a

ragic accident on the roadside in

Dunach. The accident happenedhalf way between Talbot and Clunes

n Victoria’s Central West.

Unfortunately the local media has

not reported this sad loss. Perhaps

his is because Nino had lived in the

Dunach area for his entire life and yet

was hardly known by anyone. Being

a loner who never went out during

he day, he was never seen at the

ocal Milk Bar, Pub, Post Ofce or Cafe’s and as such, simply remained

an unknown recluse.

One of the saddest things about his

shy nature was that very few people

got to spend time with him, to truly

get to know him. Anyone who was

ucky enough to do so couldn’t help

but be impressed by his humble

personality and great wisdom. He

believed fervently in living off his own

ocal patch, getting the nest in food

and supplies from his immediate

surroundings. As one who was lucky

enough to visit him on a regular

basis, I had the enormous pleasure

of witnessing the amazing impact he

had on children. Their faces lighting

up whenever they got to sit with

him as he showed them the many

beautiful things that surrounded him

on the edge of the Dunach Forest.

Nino lived simply and frugally

and had a deep understanding of

balance. He had watched the world

carefully, over time, and understood

exactly where a life of imbalance and

excess could easily lead. One of his

favourite quotes on this topic, was

that of J.K Galbraith’s in his book

‘The Afuent Society’:

“To furnish a barren room is onething. To continue to crowd in

furniture until the foundation

buckles is quite another. To have

failed to solve the problem of

producing goods would have been

to continue man in his oldest and

most grievous misfortune. But to

fail to see that we have solved it

and to fail to proceed thence to

the next task would be fully as

tragic.”

The greatest irony in Nino’s passing

is that the last thing that went

through his mind before he passed

away, was a car windscreen. The

driver, returning home after a day at

the ‘Talbot Farmers Market’, didn’t

stop after Nino bounced off the car

onto the gravel verge. After all, it

was just another dumb bird and

besides, the driver had purchased aboot-full of “Fine Food and Bootiful

Things” from around the town, much

of it from as far away as Melbourne,

South Australia, Queensland, New

South Wales and China. Getting

“Fine Food & Bootiful Things”

“Fine Food & Bootiful Things” (pg 1)

From the Editor (pgs 2,3)

- Why the focus on ‘Nino’?

Somewhere ‘Left’ to Go (pg 4)

That Dream Called Freedom (pg 5)

Beautiful Things You Won’t See(Pg 6)

The Underground Arts (pg 7)

Perspectives On (pg 8)



“The natural forms of behaviour,

which arise from humanity’s

nmost nature, are today constantly

nterfered with and crippled by theeffects of Economic Exploitation

and Governmental Guardianship.

The consciousness of Personal

Responsibility and that other

precious good that has come down

to humanity by inheritance from

remote antiquity: that capacity for

sympathy with others in which all

Social Ethics, all ideas of Social

Justice, have their origin, develop

best in freedom.”

That was Rudolph Rocker

writing about what he saw

developing around him in the

1930’s.

His wise words are very simply

saying, that inside each and

every one of us, we have a

deep inherent understanding of

what is right and just, and that

he only true way for us to bring

out that understanding, to grow

t and learn to trust it, is for us

o be free, free from economic

manipulations and free from

government interference.

mportantly, when we believe

hat our ‘social’ relationships include

ar more than just the human, when

we begin to include plants, animals

and the earth around us, we are ableo extend what we know to be right

and just to that which sustains us,

nature and our environment.

The current ‘religious’ promotion

of ‘Tourism’ in the Central West

of Victoria; has at its core, both

elements of economic manipulation

and government interference, and

precisely because of this, it lacks

any sincere social understanding.

We need only to read local newsprint

o see the massive amounts of dollars

available for ‘Tourism Promotion’,

dollars dangled by State and Federal

Governments in front of the obedient

and myopic eyes of our ‘community

leaders’. It’s not hard to comprehend

just why these simplistic manipulations

are working.

If as a society we see something that

conicts heavily with what we know

to be right and just and we do nothing

about it, then we become a society

whose inherent values erode over

time. Worse still, if we do nothing

about an issue because we fear the

loss of some personal benet, then

we rapidly become a society without

a conscience.

Increased Tourism is an issue that

conicts with our inherent values, but

before we look at why, lets expand a

little further on what has been saidso far, by going back in time to an era

when society did stand up for what it

believed to be inherently true.

Between 1801 and 1844, massive

numbers of people left the countryside

in England for the cities. Forced off

their lands by government legislation,

they became human fodder, meeting

the demand for factory workers.

They worked 15 hours a day for bare minimum wages. Before long,

children as young as 4 years of age

were also compelled to work, and

all this happened under the guiding

economic light of the government

of the day and business. The

exploitation of children was one of the

‘last straws’ and so the people, right

across the land rebelled. They went

on strike, they withdrew their labour across wide industry sectors, they

boycotted products, they sabotaged

and went on go slow campaign’s,

in short they stood up for what they

believed was just and right against

the draconian economic practice and

government legislation of the day.

Through that, they won many new

rights, rights that much of the wealthy

Western World enjoys today.

Enter 2007 . Massive

numbers of Asian people are

being forced off the land and

into the cities. 1 in 3 children

in Asia live in abject poverty,

they are not educated

because they spend their

long days working, producing

large quantities of cheap

goods for export to rich

Western Countries. Between

20 and 50 men in China lose

their lives every single day

in coal mines that produce

fossil fuel energy, energy

that underpins China’s

manufacturing sector,

industry that produces cheap

goods for export to rich

Western Countries. No doubt the

Asian people are being continually

indoctrinated with economic ideology

from government and business in aneffort to convince them that this is all

happening in ‘their best interests’.

What does our deep inherent nature;

our understanding of social ethics

and justice, our long held beliefs

about what’s right and just, say about

this situation?

Rudolph Rocker believed in the

1930’s that:

“The ever growing power of a

soulless political bureaucracy

which supervises and safeguards

the life of humans from the cradle

to the grave (the nanny state) is

putting ever greater obstacles in

E D I T O R I A L Why the Focus on ‘Nin



the way of unied co-operation

between human beings and

crushing out every possibility of

new development. Just as for thevarious systems of religion, God is

everything and Human nothing, so

for this modern political ideology,

the state (and its economics) is

everything and the human nothing.

And just as behind the “will of God”

there always lay hidden the will

of privileged minorities, so today

there hides behind the “will of the

state” (and its economics) only the

selsh interests of those who feel called to interpret this will in their

own sense and to force it upon the

people.” (Words in brackets are

the editor’s additions).

n other words, the state and its

economic ideologies have succeeded

n driving a wedge, an economic

wedge deep into the inherent social

ethics and social justice values

hat our societies once held in the

highest of esteem. The Asian origin

of much of the cheap products on

our supermarket and hardware store

shelves attest to that. Economics is

king, and just like God, its invisible

hand will x all before us, all we

need to do is worship it and trust it,

et go of our concerns and keep on

consuming.

Enter Tourism.

We know that 50% of all global fossil

uelled vehicle trafc movements are

elated to Tourism. (Source UNEP)

We know that in Australia, cars

are responsible for 21% of all

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and yet,

amazingly, car based tourism is being

promoted like there is quite literally,

no tomorrow’. (Source TEC)

We know that Tourists generally

use twice as much water when on

holidays as they do when they are

at home and as a consequence

produce twice as much wastewater.

Source UNEP)

: We know that continually increasing

noise pollution from Tourist cars,

buses and recreational vehicles

causes distress to wildlife, especiallyin sensitive areas and impacts heavily

on already threatened or endangered

species. (Source UNEP) (For a full

list of beautiful things you won’t

see around Talbot in the next 10

years if tourism continues, see

page ‘6’).

: We know from 19 of the world’s

most eminent biodiversity scientists

that; due solely to human activity,the earth is facing a “catastrophic

loss of species”. Estimations are that

approximately 30,000 species go

extinct each year, an extinction rate

of about 3 per hour. The scientists are

warning that, “because biodiversity

loss is essentially irreversible, it

poses serious threats to the quality

of life of future generations.” (Source:

The Independent 2006)

: We know that with increased Tourism

we get increased development (often

poorly planned and land intensive),

increased population, land clearing,

construction, consumption and

waste. (Source UNEP)

: We know that when we add the

Greenhouse Gas Emissions from

the transport of products sourced

for the Talbot Farmers Market from

as far away as Melbourne, SA, QLD,NSW and China to the massive

quantities pouring out the exhaust

pipes of visiting tourists, it equates to

nothing more than madness. (Source

Common Sense).

: We know that Tourism increases

low paid service jobs, increases

real estate values, increases rates

and decreases Local Government

Services, turning potentially self sufcient communities and natural

environments into nothing more than

tourism theme parks. (More on this

in later editions).

If we look deeply into our natural

E D I T O R I A L Why the Focus on ‘Nin

understanding of social ethics and

justice, what we inherently know

to be right and just, when we use

that knowledge to look at what ishappening around us, we don’t

need UNEP, TEC, IEA or a panel

of biodiversity scientists to tell us

that things are going pear-shaped.

When things go pear-shaped, those

in authority always doggedly hold on

to their outdated beliefs, whilst trying

desperately to maintain their authority

by mass marketing their agenda’s,

in the hope that this will guarantee

the continuation of what they soldtheir souls for. In 1500, a man called

Erasmus challenged the authority

of the “Earth is Flat” brigade in a

highly charged battle over their rigid

orthodox beliefs. This was a group

of individuals with quaint outdated

ideologies, not unlike the proponents

of the tourism and economic growth

mantras of today. Erasmus said of

them (words in brackets are editor’s

additions):

“They will smother me beneath

six hundred dogma’s; they will

call me heretic and they are

nevertheless folly’s servants. They

are surrounded with a bodyguard

of denitions, conclusions,

corollaries, propositions explicit

and propositions implicit. (Look

out for Eco-Tourism) Those more

fully initiated explain further

whether God (economic growthor tourism) can become the

substance of a woman, of an ass,

of a pumpkin, and whether, if so, a

pumpkin could work miracles, or

be crucied. They are looking in

utter darkness for that which has

no existence whatever.”

When we take personal responsibility

for what is right and just, and when

we make a stand against thosethings that we know to be inherently

wrong, we attain freedom, freedom to

choose a better path, freedom from

false hopes and freedom from false

saviours like those that we are led to

believe exist, in utter darkness.



The ‘Left’ is lost in its own afuence

and the ‘Right’ is bulging at the seams

with private smugness.

The ‘New Left’ or the ‘Aspiration

Socialists’ abound. Some of them were

practising radicals a few decades ago

when they had something to ght for,

ike a larger slice of the pie. As with

all actions based on fear or greed,

once the monster is sated its host can

settle back into complacency until it

believes it might lose something to

another host or worse still, miss out

altogether.

The ‘Right’ doesn’t suffer from

aspiration, with Darwinian theory

ucked under one arm and free market

economics under the other; it knows

what it stands for. Survival of the ttest,

proteering, human exploitation,

environmental destruction, it marches

arrogantly forward. The politics of

ear and greed are back in town in a

big way which is why the ‘Right’ have

been on a roll. They promise ever

ncreasing net worth and the offer

of security against it being stolen by

any global threat they can dream

up. With their nger rmly planted

on the pulse of human predictability,

hey hide behind their contrivance

by contemptuously stating that; “the

people always get it right at election

ime”.

The ‘New Left’ tags along like a junky,ts desire for the consumption x

easily overcomes its guilt. It goes cold

urkey occasionally, just long enough

o paint a banner and go for a walk with

ts fellow addicts. The ‘New Left’ has

a voice, it’s just that it doesn’t want to

use it too loudly. As reformists vainly

attempting to put a human face on

hierarchical capitalism, the only path

hey can really take is the expansion

of their own pretentiousness.

God of course makes an appearance

n both camps. On the ‘Right’, he

has an open channel through which

his word’ with all its patriarchal

connotations, can be communicated.

On the ‘Left’, as the helper of those

less fortunate, the matriarchal hand of

top down charity, through which she

allows them to assuage their varyingdegrees of ‘aspirational guilt’.

The two camps ght as if their really

is some great distinction between

them. They engage in never ending

arguments over minutiae, focused

primarily of course on welfare,

healthcare and education, the three

factors used to pacify the ‘radicals

way back when’. It was different

then, with a small group of ‘haves’and a large group of ‘have nots’, the

distinction was supposedly clear.

These days the water is muddied by

a large middle group, ‘the think they

haves’. The sales pitch has been

easily swallowed; greed successfully

forging the mistaken belief that the

banks expanding net worth is really

theirs.

With every incremental step up in

the utopian belief of ever increasing

net worth for all, the middle ground

moves further from the equally

utopian concepts of public welfare,

healthcare and education for all.

Make no mistake; the capitalist

system has no room for either.

The widespread realization of this is

yet to dawn and the ‘Left’ as nothing

more than an impotent reformist player

has nowhere to go until it does.

The arguments over what the

‘Left’ should do are incessant.

Should they continue with reform or

adopt revolution? The knowledge

of the outcome of both already

exists. Reform means hierarchical

modication, a shifting of the deck

chairs, whilst revolution, bloodless or

otherwise ushers in a new hierarchy.

Either way, power remains centralisedamongst an elite few. Communism

after all was nothing more than state

based capitalism.

The hierarchical economic growth

model, of which both camps are

proponents and society followers,

is through resource depletion,

environmental destruction, population

growth, global conict and warming,placing civilisation as we know it

on the edge of imminent collapse.

Leadership is frequently touted as the

only solution, with governments being

called upon to reform or regulate their

industries and societies or employ

‘new technologies’ to overcome the

problems. We see nothing more than

the myopic reliance on top down

solutions complete with their own

agendas and ocks of followers. Willthe day ever arrive when they nally

‘get it’?

The answer lies in the individual and it

will become evident only as a result of

consequence or self awareness. The

former, if it happens, will be forced

and may well arrive too late for most.

The latter will only occur when each

individual understands the capitalist

system for what it truly is, actively

works to dismantle it and learns how

to pass on, by example, new found

knowledge to future generations.

It is tempting at this point to believe

that we cannot work on dismantling

a system we rely on for our very

survival. As humans, we shy away

from confronting what we believe

to be ‘irreconcilable differences’.

Confronting them means making a

choice, so its much easier to hidebehind the rationalisation that we

will initially be a small number of

dismantlers, outnumbered by many

potential opposers.

When we begin to confront the

irreconcilable differences however,

we discover that there really is

somewhere left for human kind to go,

a place of freedom, a destination that

is embedded deep in every one of us,a place where autonomy and unity

combine.

All we need is the courage to leave

the outdated ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ behind,

to wallow in their nostalgia.

Somewhere ‘Left’ to Go



That Dream Called Freedom

“The dream, that dream called

freedom, which is uniquely a part

of Western Democracy ”.

Put your hand on your heart ladies

and gentleman, for this statement

encapsulates just what it means to

be a patriot of ‘Western Democracy’.

Oh, and as an aside, it’s what most

nfuriates those of us who have just

asked for a bucket!

Why is it that ‘Western Democracy’

has the arrogant belief that ‘freedom’

or its pursuit is a unique concept of

he West? Why is it that the West

believes that freedom has only beennvented in the relatively recent

and brief history of the West? The

opening statement shows nothing but

contempt for the millions of people

who have died over thousands of

years ghting for that most elusive of

human desires, the right to be free,

frequently against those with imperial

ist aspirations from the West.

Amazingly, the ‘Founding Fathers’

of the USA, those that escaped

tyranny in Europe, immediately set

about creating their own tyranny in

North America. As Joe Bageant, the

celebrated American writer puts it:

“It was Christian America that

practiced genocide on the Red

Indian and chopped off the feet

of black slaves so they could not

run away from their appointed

duties building the ‘City on theHill’. Chopping off their feet was

practical, sane, clever even. We

are all richer now for our ancestors

cleverness and sanity. Right now

it’s a dusky semitic people and their

oil that occupies our cleverness”.

Or as Stokely Carmichael

so eloquently once said

of the West:

“I often ask myself

whether or not the

West believes that the

third world really loves

them and that’s why

they have obeyed them.

But it’s clear that they

feared them. The west

with all its guns and

its power and its might came into Africa, Asia,

Latin America and the

USA and raped it. And

while they raped it they

used beautiful terms.

They told the Indians,

“we’re civilizing you and

we’re taming the west.

And if you won’t be

civilized, we’ll kill you.”

So they committed

genocide and stole the

land and put Indians

on reservations, and

they said that they had

civilized the country.”

Luckily for the Aborigines

in Australia, they too would be

honoured with the ‘best’ the West

had to offer in ‘civilisation’. Today, as

far as the Australian ‘Democratically

Elected’ Government is concerned,the ‘civilisation’ process directed at

the Australian Aborigine remains

incomplete and probably won’t be

nalised until the race is ‘civilised’

into extinction.

And so this is the ‘freedom’ that

the West invented and is now

attempting to distribute around

the remainder of the world, with

arrogance, hypocrisy and pride.

Is it any wonder that the remainder

of the world is getting just a ‘tad’

upset?

“Mr President, I have a question about Western Democracy?”



Talbot and Dunach

Grey Goshawk – Vulnerable

Spotted Harrier – Near Threatened

Squared Tailed Kite – Vulnerable

White Bellied Eagle – Vulnerable

Australian Shoveler – Vulnerable

Blue Billed Duck – Endangered

Freckled Duck – Endangered

Hardhead Duck – Vulnerable

Musk Duck – Vulnerable

Australian Bittern – Endangered

Great Egret – Vulnerable

Intermediate Egret – Vulnerable

Nankeen Night Herron – Near Threatened

Inland Dotterel – Vulnerable

Brown Treecreeper – Near Threatened

Diamond Dove – Near Threatened

Black Eared Cuckoo – Near Threatened

Black Falcon – Vulnerable

Brolga – Vulnerable

Whiskered Tern – Near Threatened

Black Chinned Honeyeater – Near Threatened

Painted Honey Eater – Vulnerable

Crested Bellbird – Near Threatened

Speckled Warbler – Vulnerable

Diamond Firetail – Vulnerable

Hooded Robin – Near Threatened

Pied Cormorant – Near Threatened

Swift Parrot – Endangered

Bailons Crake – VulnerablePainted Snipe – Vulnerable

Lathams Snipe – Vulnerable

Pectoral Sandpiper – Near Threatened

Wood Sandpiper – Vulnerable

Barking Owl – Endangered

Powerful Owl – Vulnerable

Glossy Ibis – Near Threatened

Royal Spoonbill – Vulnerable

Little Button Quail – Near Threatened

Growling Grass Frog – Endangered

Brown Toadlet – Endangered

Mountain Galaxias – Listed Under Victorian

Fauna Gaurantee

Brush Tailed Phascogale – Vulnerable

B e a u t i f u l T h i n g s Y o u W o n ’ t S e e i n t h e F U T U R E

Nino



U n d e r g r o u n d A r t s



P e r s p e c t i v e s

Anarchist Savants Monthly

PO Box 43 Clunes Victoria 3370

Editor: Andrew Stretton

[email protected]

Layout / Graphics: Kristin Rule

[email protected]

Research: Thomas Hink

Published: Monthly

Contributions at Editorial Discretion

Out of courtesy and respect, please

contact us prior to publishing or using

any of our material.

Printed on 100% Recycled Paper.

The STaTe of The auSTralian environmenT (1996 STaTiSTicS - updaTeS in fuTure ediTionS)

L and

: Only 6% of the Australian continent is arable.

: Approximately 54% is grazed, leaving 40% which is too arid for

agriculture.

: Degraded land, which totalled 1 million hectares in 1900, had risen to

25 million by 1990.

: Approximately 1/3 of Victoria’s irrigated land is saline.

Water

: One third of Australia has limited run off whilst two thirds occurs in

Northern Australia.

: The Murray Darling system drains 1/7th of the nations water but its ow

is less than one day’s ow of the Amazon.

: Approximately 80% of Australia is totally dependent on underground

water.

: Inland water use is greater than supply and therefore unsustainable.

Forests

:Of Australia’s original forest cover of 244 million hectares, only 61%remain and only 5% is untouched or pristine.

: As much clearing has occurred in the last 50 years as did in the previous

150 years.

: Australia has lost 3/4 of its tropical rainforests.

Biodiversity

The proportion of vulnerable, endangered or extinct animals is as

follows:

: 5% of higher plants

: 7% of reptiles

: 9% of birds and freshwater sh

: 16% of amphibians

: 23% of mammals

: Australia has lost 18 of its 197 mammals, the worst rate in the world.

Pollution

: At 4.19 tons, Australia’s per capita Greenhouse Gas Emissions are the

fourth highest in the world.

: Between 1970 and 1990, Australia’s energy use rose 37% with a con-

sequent rise in CO2 emissions of 25%.: Australia’s solid wastes of 618 Kilogram per head is much higher than

the OECD average of 513 KG / Head.

Source, CSIRO Melbourne

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